Gillian Clarke

Gillian Clarke, the National Poet of Wales, was born in Cardiff in 1937. Since her first collection Snow on the Mountain came out in 1971 she has emerged as a central figure in contemporary Welsh poetry. Her sensitive and insightful poems have achieved widespread critical and popular acclaim and have been studied by GCSE and A Level students throughout the UK. She is also a playwright, editor and translator (from Welsh). In 2010 she won the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry. Her last three books have all been Poetry Book Society Recommendations and her most recent collection, Ice (Carcanet, 2012), was shortlisted for the 2012 T. S. Eliot Prize. Gillian lives with her family on a small organic farm in Ceredigion mid-west Wales raising sheep.